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You may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.
Abraham Lincoln.

ICUS managed to fool the people at Companies House into registering it as a full-blown company back in March 2006, even though it fails to fulfil the requirements laid down in the literature relating to company registration published by Companies House itself.

First, to call itself an "Institute" it should be engaged in "research at the highest level." Is instruction and examination in just 42 laws - laws which it does not itself frame - research at the highest level? Hardly, even in today's world.

Second, it has to show that there is a need for the proposed "Institute." If we are not greatly mistaken, ACU&S is still in business, and the ECB has set up ECB OA. If there was ever a need for another organisation, it is surely not now.

Third, it should provide "evidence of support from other representative and independent bodies." ICUS got Mrs Joy Muir on behalf of Northern Ireland ACU&S, a sub-area of the second smallest region of ACU&S to write such a letter, which was both outside the terms of its own constitution and lacked the authority of its parent. In addition to which it is representative only of itself, has no influence outside Northern Ireland and, with its treasurer and secretary having been until recently on the ACU&S General Council alongside most of the ICUS board, is in no sense independent.

You might be forgiven for thinking that once all this had been pointed out to them, the people at Companies House would have been falling over themselves to put right the glaring mistake they made by registering the company on 10th March 2006. No such luck! They dragged their feet and pretended that all kinds of questions had to be asked, and finally, we went to the Director of Customer Delivery himself - called by a stroke of irony which you could not write as fiction, Tom Smith! - in the hope of getting something sensible at last. Today, Friday 27th October, we got his letter which starts with the ICUS title in full, but without any greeting. It is worth quoting. (For ease of reference, we are numbering the paragraphs in the so-called "reasoning" section).

"Issue
Thank you for your letter of 14 October (which I am afraid I did not receive until 19 October) asking me to intervene in Companies House's consideration of this case. So far I have considered the substantive issue: whether Companies House should, on behalf of the Secretary of State, direct the ICUS to change its name.

Decision
My decision, having considered all the evidence carefully, is that we will not make any such direction.

Reasoning
(1) The Companies Act gives the Secretary of State certain powers to approve company names and to require in certain circumstances that they be changed. The exercise of these powers is delegated to Companies House.

(2) Under s26 (1) (b) and s29 (1) of the Companies Act 1985, the Secretary of State can specify words or expressions that require his approval. As a matter of policy we refer to these words as being "sensitive". "Institute" is one such word.

(3) To register the name "Institute of Cricket Umpires and Scorers" (ICUS) the applicants were required to provide supporting evidence that justified the inclusion of the word "Institute" in the company name. Each case is treated on its merits. Taking the application as a whole, we concluded on the basis of all the information available to us that the proposed activities of the ICUS were such as to justify the use of the term "Institute". The company was incorporated on 10 March 2006.

(4) We received an objection to the registration of the name on 3 April. Having received the objection, we considered the case under section 28 (3) of the Act. Under this section, the Secretary of State may issue a direction requiring the company to change its name, if in the opinion of the Secretary of State misleading information has been given for the purpose of a company's registration.

(5) We have noted the assertion made by you and by other complainants to the effect that the ICUS misled us regarding their overall standing within the cricket umpiring community.

(6) However, we have concluded that none of the observations submitted by you or others amounts to evidence that the ICUS submitted "misleading information for the purpose of a company's registration". We have therefore concluded that there are no grounds to issue a section 28 (3) direction to the ICUS to change its name." He finishes with the optimistic statement that "this concludes Companies House's consideration of this issue" and that he is copying the letter to others including Steven Wood (ACUS) and to Naval Heeramaneck (ICUS).

Just how tautly reasoned do you find all that? Only one paragraph, (3), contains anything which might be called reasoning and even that does not present an argument, or adduce any evidence. It just says, "Taking the application as a whole, we concluded etc etc." Where is the reasoning in that? It contains about as much logical argument as used to be provided by the Oracle at Delphi. This is your answer. Now go away. Well, we do not find that quite good enough and Mr Tom Smith really must try harder. As for the other paragraphs, if you read them again you will see that none of them contains argument or reasoning; they just describe procedure and Company House requirements, all of which we knew and had referred to in earlier letters. (4) is substantially just a repetition of (1). None contains one iota of reasoning and (5) includes a mistake because it has been the lack of standing in the cricket world of NIACU&S, not ICUS ( feeble though that may be) to which we have tried to draw their attention.

So, for the time being ICUS continue to fool some of the people, including one who bears the name of the man who founded ACU&S, and it gives rise to serious problems. What purpose is served by having an institute if its qualifications and awards are unrecognised by those who actually run cricket? (Aware of this difficulty, Farnfield and Say quickly applied to become paid-up members of ECB OA). Again, what might be the legal implications of accepting money for qualifications that are, in practice, worthless? Is that not usually called fraud?

It does not stop here, though. We shall ask Mr Smith to explain which of our "observations" (para 6) is thought not to constitute evidence. We shall ask him to clarify his opaque so-called reasoning. So far, Companies House has been avoiding letting us see any of the "information available to us" using a section of the Companies Act which, as their investigations are now complete, no longer applies. We shall be asking to be given a sight of this. It will be interesting to see just how convincing and how truthful that evidence turns out to be. The case remains open.

You can't fool all of the people all of the time.